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The American Prospect - articles by authorenWelfare as We Might Know Ithttp://prospect.org/article/welfare-we-might-know-it
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<p>
<font size="+2">I</font>n<br />
August 1996, President Clinton signed welfare reform legislation<br />
that signaled the end of an era in the country's response to needy<br />
families. No longer will cash assistance to dependent children<br />
be guaranteed by the federal government. Instead it will be provided,<br />
or not, by states using block grants.</p>
<p>
<img src="../images/30covbug.jpg" alt="*" align="Right" height="142" width="144" border="0" vspace="5" hspace="5" />In signing the legislation, the President identified a number<br />
of "flaws" that he promised to fix after the election.<br />
Other Democrats, some of whom voted for the bill, took up the<br />
President's refrain. Their statements implied that there was little<br />
to worry about in the legislation, since any problems with it<br />
could be solved in the 105th Congress.</p>
<p>
This implication is wrongand not just because Congress remains<br />
Republican. The fundamental flaws in the law are not in the food<br />
stamp or immigrant provisions that the President has singled out<br />
for criticism, but in the abdication of federal responsibility<br />
for the poor. Even if cuts in food stamps and immigrant benefits<br />
could be restored, which would be difficult in the current budget<br />
context, the structural change in welfare is irreversible in the<br />
foreseeable future.</p>
<p>
The countryor at least the Congressdecided that the old welfare<br />
system needed to be scrapped. The public, rightly, wanted welfare<br />
reform that expected work and parental responsibility. The political<br />
rhetoric supporting the new law, unfortunately, made the concept<br />
of a federal entitlement synonymous with irresponsibility and<br />
lifelong dependency, and the replacement of the entitlement with<br />
block grants synonymous with work requirements. This rhetoric<br />
was misleading but powerfully effective. It will be many years<br />
before public officials can talk again about a guarantee of assistance,<br />
or even a guarantee of work or protection for children. </p>
<p>
I believe the new welfare law poses serious dangers to poor children<br />
and families. As assistant secretary for children and families<br />
in the Department of Health and Human Services, I supported the<br />
administration's efforts to refocus the welfare system on work<br />
and to increase state flexibility through the waiver process.<br />
But in the course of reviewing state welfare reform proposals,<br />
I became concerned that politics and financial pressures were<br />
pushing states into a "race to the bottom." As long<br />
as the old law was in place the federal government could insist<br />
on guaranteed assistance and protections for recipients. My fears<br />
about what would happen to poor children when states were no longer<br />
required to provide the modest assurances and protections we insisted<br />
on in waiver demonstrations led me to resign after President Clinton<br />
signed the welfare bill. </p>
<p>
I believe the dangers in the law will be impossible to alleviate<br />
with the incremental changes that are politically feasible. The<br />
deed is done. This round of debate about poverty and welfare has<br />
ended with the issue being left to the states. But it is hard<br />
to imagine that the national interest in the well-being of children<br />
can be so easily put aside. So it is now time to look toward the<br />
longer term, and to begin laying the groundwork for approaches<br />
that could build a new national safety net for poor children above<br />
the wreckage of the old one.</p>
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<p></p></center><br /><hr size="1" /><p></p><h3>IMMIGRANTS AND FOOD STAMPS</h3>
<p>
The new welfare lawthe Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity<br />
Reconciliation Act of 1996has nine titles. One of them, Title<br />
III on child support enforcement, makes unambiguous improvements<br />
in the national child support enforcement system and as a freestanding<br />
bill would probably have received near unanimous support. Another,<br />
Title VI on child care, authorizes more federal money for child<br />
care, and takes some steps toward a more integrated child care<br />
system by rationalizing, somewhat, a number of federal child care<br />
funding streams. Titles V, VII, and IX make small and relatively<br />
harmless changes in child protection, child nutrition, and other<br />
programs.</p>
<p>
Title II has received little attention but may have significant<br />
effects. It redefines benefit eligibility rules for disabled children<br />
under the supplemental security income program. The impetus for<br />
the changes came from allegations of abuse in the program by families<br />
of children with emotional, behavioral, and learning problems.<br />
Though these abuses were not found to be widespread in studies<br />
by the Health and Human Services inspector general and other watchdog<br />
groups, changes in the program to require medical determinations<br />
of physical or mental impairments (rather than simply functional<br />
assessments) received wide bipartisan support. This will lead<br />
to denials of benefits to many families. </p>
<p>
Title IV, dealing with immigrants, and Title VIII, dealing with<br />
food stamps, were singled out by the President as the most seriously<br />
flawed. Title IV bans most legal immigrants from most federal<br />
benefit programs. Title VIII makes across-the-board cuts in food<br />
stamp benefits. It also includes one of the meanest legislative<br />
provisions of recent history, restricting food stamp benefits<br />
to unemployed adults without disabilities or dependents to 3 months<br />
out of 36. These two titles generate most of the $54 billion savings<br />
in the law. They are in theory fixablethe money just needs to<br />
be put back in. But in practice this will not be easy, given the<br />
general commitment to balancing the budget and the lack of political<br />
support for immigrants and nonworking childless adults.</p>
<p>
Even if the immigrant and food stamp provisions in the law were<br />
softened, however, the bill would still pose serious dangers.<br />
The dangers come from Title I, which replaces the Aid to Families<br />
with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with block grants to the<br />
states for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This<br />
is the welfare reform title of the bill, the title that is touted<br />
as reforming welfare by replacing it with work. </p>
<p>
</p><hr /><h3>FROM AFDC TO TANF</h3>
<p>
The new law abolishes the AFDC program, which guaranteed cash<br />
assistance at levels set by states to needy children whose parents<br />
were unable to provide for them, and guaranteed federal matching<br />
money to the states in amounts sufficient to provide the stipulated<br />
benefits. The old law was nothing to be proud of; it badly needed<br />
reforms to require and provide opportunities for work and parental<br />
responsibility and to hasten families off the rolls rather than<br />
lock them into dependency. But the new law goes much further than<br />
these sensible reforms. It abdicates federal responsibility for<br />
needy children by abolishing any entitlement to benefits or services<br />
and providing very flexible block grants to the states, while<br />
mandating tough work requirements and a five-year lifetime limit<br />
on the receipt of assistance.</p>
<p>
The real dangers from the TANF part of the law come both from<br />
the work and time-limit requirementswhich states will have many<br />
opportunities either to use constructively or to avoidand from<br />
the enormous flexibility the states have to spend money, set eligibility<br />
requirements, and provide assistance, or not, as they wish.</p>
<p>
Some states will use their block grants for creative and innovative<br />
approaches to providing work opportunities for adults and appropriate<br />
services for children, at least in the short run. Some states<br />
will respond to the work requirements and five-year time limits<br />
in the new law by helping parents move quickly into work or community<br />
service, supporting them in their jobs, and making sure their<br />
children are safe and adequately supervised.</p>
<p>
But the new law provides broad flexibility in the use of funds,<br />
including the power to carry over funds from year to year and<br />
to transfer funds to other programs, and the power to devolve<br />
responsibility to lower levels of government and even to for-profit<br />
companiesall of this with almost no federal oversight. Federal<br />
matching of state funds is replaced by a relatively loose requirement<br />
that the states maintain their spending at 80 percent of their<br />
1994 level; this means that states can and probably will reduce<br />
state funds spent on welfare. All the political and financial<br />
incentives are for states to cut assistance, to impose time limits<br />
shorter than five years, to meet the work requirements without<br />
spending any money, to shift responsibilities to local governments<br />
and private contractors, and to use the block grant funds for<br />
more politically popular programs. All of these tendencies were<br />
evident in waiver demonstrations proposed by states before enactment<br />
of the new law. </p>
<p>
Politics at the state level are not likely to support spending<br />
on the very poor, given the freedom and incentives to use the<br />
funds more broadly. Competition among the states, I predict, will<br />
continue over who can be tougher on welfare. The for-profit firms<br />
bidding to run welfare systems will be driven by cost considerations.<br />
There will be little incentive for states to put money into job<br />
development, job training, or worker support. Freed from the constraints<br />
of the federal law and the waiver process, it would be surprising<br />
if state legislatures did not enact further restrictions on cash<br />
benefits. And Congress is unlikely to overrule state decisions.</p>
<p>
Also, disparities among states will be exacerbated by the funding<br />
formula, which locks in historical differences in per capita (more<br />
precisely, in per poor child) spending. Since some of the more<br />
advantaged states are also those with stable or falling populations,<br />
and vice versa, these disparities could well increase over time.</p>
<p>
The danger, of course, is that the flexibility and incentives<br />
at the state level will result in harm to vulnerable families<br />
and children, at least in some states. Unemployment rates differ;<br />
in many jurisdictions, there will be a lack of employment as well<br />
as a lack of training and support for low-wage workers. The absence<br />
of cash assistance, whether because of lower benefits, time limits,<br />
or sanctions tied to tough work requirements, may be most felt<br />
in housing, with increased eviction and moving, more doubling<br />
up and crowded conditions, and more violence-prone relationships.<br />
Children may also suffer from a lack of supervision and appropriate<br />
discipline from parents who are away from home for long hours<br />
without the ability to provide good substitute care. For some,<br />
abandonment or serious abuse or neglect will result. For more,<br />
the effects may show up in poor school performance and antisocial<br />
behavior.</p>
<p>
What can be done to mitigate these outcomes? It is important to<br />
fix the immigrant and food stamp provisions in the bill by restoring<br />
the cuts and exempting more classes of immigrants from bans on<br />
benefits, as best as can be done within budget constraints. Fixing<br />
the TANF block grant will be much harder, given the political<br />
enthusiasm for abolishing the entitlement and giving flexibility<br />
to the states. Among the most important short-term fixes will<br />
be to strengthen requirements that state programs be publicly<br />
accountable and treat recipients with some semblance of due process.<br />
Over the longer term, we will need to construct a new national<br />
safety net, based on jobs for adults and a new approach to protecting<br />
children.</p>
<p>
</p><hr /><h3>DISPATCHING DUE PROCESS</h3>
<p>
The welfare law's explicit elimination of an entitlement to benefits<br />
or services presumably has two purposes: to send a message that<br />
assistance is temporary and conditional on meeting work and other<br />
requirements; and to eliminate or sharply limit the ability of<br />
recipients to claim due process protections and to litigate denials<br />
or terminations of assistance. By repealing federal AFDC, Congress<br />
undermined 60 years of case law establishing due process protections<br />
for recipients. The new law leaves open the very real possibility<br />
that states will condition assistance not just on meeting requirements<br />
but on the availability of funds. Like housing assistance currently,<br />
cash and employment assistance could become subject to waiting<br />
lists or other forms of rationing. It also leaves open the possibility<br />
that recipients will have little recourse if they are denied assistance,<br />
even for arbitrary or discriminatory reasons.</p>
<p>
The law does say that the state plan "shall set forth objective<br />
criteria for the delivery of benefits and the determination of<br />
eligibility and for fair and equitable treatment, including an<br />
explanation of how the State will provide opportunities for recipients<br />
who have been adversely affected to be heard in a State administrative<br />
or appeal process." This would seem to require that states<br />
lay out rules for getting assistance, that they apply them fairly,<br />
and that they provide some rights of review. It will no doubt<br />
provide the basis for legal appeals. However, because the new<br />
law is so explicit about the elimination of the entitlement, and<br />
so cryptic about requirements on the states, the set of protections<br />
and due process rights developed through litigation under the<br />
old law will almost certainly not be applied. Different judges<br />
in different districts and circuits will interpret equal protection<br />
and due process requirements differently, and a piecemeal system<br />
of rights and protections, or lack thereof, will gradually develop.</p>
<p>
Efforts by Democrats to clarify and strengthen the equitable treatment<br />
language were unsuccessful during the congressional debate and<br />
were attacked as attempts to reinstitute an entitlement. But it<br />
does seem reasonable to require states to make clear to potential<br />
recipients what benefits and services will be provided, under<br />
what precise conditions, and to whom. It also seems reasonable<br />
to require states to serve everyone they say they will serve,<br />
so that families and children in need are not disadvantaged by<br />
the vagaries of the appropriations or economic cycles of a state.<br />
Legislating these requirements would be an important short-run<br />
improvement, and would be both fairer and faster than relying<br />
on a litigation strategy. Even though no particular benefits or<br />
services would be guaranteed, at least potential recipients would<br />
know the rules and could count on receiving whatever assistance<br />
was authorized.</p>
<p>
<font size="+2">A</font>nother important short-term fix is to strengthen the reporting<br />
requirements in the law. State plans are currently required to<br />
contain only an "outline" of how the state "intends<br />
to . . . conduct a program that provides assistance to needy families<br />
with (or expecting) children and provides parents with job preparation,<br />
work and support services to enable them to leave the program<br />
and become self-sufficient." Federal block grant funds may<br />
be used "in any manner that is reasonably calculated to accomplish<br />
the purpose of this part," with the calculation made almost<br />
entirely by the state. States are not required to explain in any<br />
detail how they are using the federal block grant or required<br />
state maintenance-of-effort funds: what benefits or services they're<br />
using the money for, under what conditions, for how many people,<br />
and at what levels of benefits or services; what money is being<br />
used for if it is carried over or transferred to other programs;<br />
and how much is being spent on things other than ongoing cash<br />
assistance or employment. Since federal oversight is almost eliminated<br />
by the law, state-level monitoring and advocacy will be the primary<br />
mechanisms for achieving and enforcing state commitments to needy<br />
families. The ability of the public to scrutinize the program<br />
could be greatly enhanced by strong state planning and reporting<br />
requirements.</p>
<p>
It might be useful to go beyond reporting requirements and specify<br />
more clearly the uses to which block grant funds may be put, and<br />
the uses of funds that count toward the state's required maintenance<br />
of effort. The enormous flexibility in the use of funds and the<br />
entry of profit-making consultants and contractors into the business<br />
of developing and running welfare systems will almost certainly<br />
lead to exploitation of the loopholes in the law. There is certain<br />
to be shifting of costs from state to federal funds, and attempts<br />
to use block grant funds (or to free up other money) for state<br />
programs that are mandatedlike Medicaidor that are more politically<br />
popular than welfare. </p>
<p>
Though some in Congress may try to close loopholes and direct<br />
the funds more tightly to certain forms of assistance, the attempt<br />
is unlikely to be successful. Governorsand their allies in Congresswill<br />
defend their ability to use funds as they see fit. An example<br />
of the difficulty of closing loopholes comes from the old law.<br />
States started to use open-ended federal emergency assistance<br />
funds, provided through the AFDC program, to finance their juvenile<br />
justice systems. HHS disallowed this use through administrative<br />
action. Under the new law, after agitation by a number of states<br />
with powerful representatives, states are explicitly permitted<br />
to use funds for any purpose that they were using them for before<br />
HHS action, such as juvenile justice. </p>
<p>
Moreover, limiting the use of funds at this point would circumscribe<br />
what may be the best opportunity provided by the new legislationfor<br />
states to genuinely experiment with new approaches to serving<br />
families and children. Investing heavily in diversion, day care,<br />
subsidized employment, or other approaches that are only now being<br />
thought about may, in fact, be successful. A period of genuine<br />
experimentation, as long as there is full and complete reporting<br />
(and adequate funding), may well be the best foundation for building<br />
a new national commitment to needy families and children.</p>
<p>
</p><hr /><h3>WELFARE TO WORK?</h3>
<p>
A new national commitment is likely to be necessary. President<br />
Clinton and others have already recognized that genuinely reforming<br />
welfare requires jobs for those who must leave welfare. The President<br />
has proposed a combination of moral suasion of private employers,<br />
tax incentives, and modest grants to cities to fill this need.</p>
<p>
Urban areas where "work has disappeared" will be hardest<br />
hit by the change in welfare. Not only do these areas often lack<br />
vital businesses that could provide jobs, they are also home to<br />
many people who lack the basic capacities, skills, and attitudes<br />
necessary to obtain and hold employment. What is known about the<br />
characteristics of current long-term welfare recipients, through<br />
work by Donna Pavetti of the Urban Institute and others, does<br />
not suggest an easy transition to self-sufficiency. Most are poorly<br />
educated with little or sporadic work experience. Many have cognitive<br />
and skills deficits. Many have histories of substance abuse or<br />
domestic violence. Many have great difficulties holding jobs,<br />
because of poor work habits, difficulties in dealing with authority,<br />
and problems in managing the routines of child care, transportation,<br />
and work life.</p>
<p>
For these workers to become fully self-sufficient will take investment<br />
in a network of training and support services that help them not<br />
only get but also keep jobs through the inevitable difficulties<br />
at work and at homeand to get new jobs when they lose the first<br />
one. The problem is made more complicated and more crucial by<br />
the fact that focusing job development and support resources entirely<br />
on current or past welfare recipientsalmost all of whom are womenis<br />
likely to be self-defeating. Strong family and community life<br />
requires the participation of men as husbands, fathers, and workers.</p>
<p>
Too small, too tightly targeted programs are likely to be ineffective<br />
in changing the environment of depressed urban areas to one in<br />
which work is available, desired, and kept. The modest program<br />
that the Clinton administration has proposed may provide opportunities<br />
to experiment with what does and does not succeed in these areas.<br />
It will be important to see it not as a solution in itself but<br />
as a program that might provide a basis for a fuller national<br />
commitment later.</p>
<p>
</p><hr /><h3>WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHILDREN?</h3>
<p>
Protecting children who are hurt by the welfare bill is equally<br />
importantand even more complicated. Analyses produced by the<br />
Department of Health and Human Services and by the Urban Institute<br />
before the bill was enacted predicted that upward of a million<br />
children would be pushed into poverty as a result of the bill,<br />
and that some eight million families with children would lose<br />
income. The poverty effects result mostly from the cuts in food<br />
stamps, supplemental security income, and immigrant benefits,<br />
since many families potentially affected by the cuts have incomes<br />
right on the edge of poverty.</p>
<p>
More difficult to predict are the effects of work requirements,<br />
time limits, state flexibility, and the dramatic change in the<br />
nature of welfare itself produced by the elimination of the entitlement.<br />
No doubt some current long-term welfare recipientsand it is really<br />
impossible to predict how manywill respond to the combination<br />
of tough requirements, short time limits, and modest services<br />
by getting jobs and getting their lives together. But many will<br />
not. States that have gotten serious about work or more general<br />
participation requirements are cutting the benefits of many, many<br />
families who are sanctioned for noncooperation. States have also<br />
seen dramatic decreases in caseloads, not entirely driven by good<br />
economies, from people deterred by the new requirements and the<br />
new climate.</p>
<p>
Sadly, there are almost no data to indicate what happens to these<br />
families and their children when they are no longer receiving<br />
welfare. It is possible to offer some guesses, however. Some of<br />
the families are no doubt fine, having found jobs, decent living<br />
situations, and adequate child care, so that their children are<br />
well cared for and safe. Others are likely to be in situations<br />
of great instability, both in their work and in their housing;<br />
some are likely to be in danger. </p>
<p>
<font size="+2">T</font>he debates around welfare reform recognized the potential<br />
harm to children. The shape and resolution of the debates illustrate<br />
the difficulty of resolving the dilemma. The earliest versions<br />
of the Republican welfare bill would have allowed states to use<br />
block grant money for orphanages, in stark recognition of the<br />
facts that some families would be denied assistance entirely and<br />
that not all parents would successfully meet the challenges of<br />
the new requirements. Democrats attacked this provision relentlessly.<br />
They observed that good group homes are very expensive and could<br />
never provide care for more than a small fraction of children<br />
affected by time limits or denials of benefits for other reasons.<br />
They also reminded the country that for many decades child protection<br />
laws have recognized that poverty and unemployment are not crimes<br />
for which the removal of children is appropriate punishment. In<br />
response to the fierce attacks, the word "orphanage"<br />
was quickly removed from later versions of the bill. The underlying<br />
problem, however, was never addressed.</p>
<p>
The Democratic answer to the problem of protecting children was<br />
vouchers. In substitute bills and in amendments offered in committees<br />
and on the floor, Democrats proposed that states be required,<br />
or at least permitted, to provide vouchers to cover certain needs<br />
of children whose families lost benefits because of the inability<br />
to find work or the imposition of time limits. The proposal did<br />
not extend to the children of parents who refused to cooperate,<br />
turned down jobs, were fired for cause, or quit for causeall<br />
likely to occur. Nonetheless, Republicans fought the voucher proposals<br />
vigorously and successfully, arguing that vouchers simply reinstituted<br />
the old entitlement to indefinite assistance under another name.</p>
<p>
We need an amendment permitting states to use block grant funds<br />
for vouchers, and perhaps even requiring them to provide vouchers<br />
if they institute time limits on cash assistance shorter than<br />
five years. To really make mandatory vouchers work, however, would<br />
require specification of the circumstances in which they would<br />
be offered, and by extension of the circumstances under which<br />
cash assistance itself is offered. Given the enthusiasm with which<br />
the last Congress abolished the entitlement and celebrated state<br />
flexibility, it seems unlikely that the present Congress will<br />
go this far toward a federally defined right to assistance. Moreover,<br />
even this proposal does not deal very adequately with the dangers<br />
to children whose parents cannot or will not make it in the new<br />
world of temporary assistance and requirements.</p>
<p>
<font size="+2">T</font>he old welfare system all too often gave up on long-term<br />
recipients but provided for their children with minimal but continuous<br />
cash assistance. The new welfare system will no longer do this.<br />
But the current child protection system, which investigates reported<br />
child abuse and neglect and supervises out-of-home placement for<br />
children who are found to be in danger, is not equipped to deal<br />
with the situations of children whose families lose benefits.<br />
The system is already overwhelmed by escalating numbers of abuse<br />
and neglect reports. And it has a limited set of tools for responding<br />
to the needs of children. Most states provide very few services<br />
to families and rely on foster care for protecting children in<br />
danger. Child protection systems are explicitly not authorized<br />
to provide ongoing housing or cash assistance, even if economic<br />
deprivation appears to be the cause of child neglect.</p>
<p>
If neither the welfare system, now focused on employment, nor<br />
the child protection system can step in to help children hurt<br />
by welfare reform, then who will protect kids? States, communities,<br />
and private agencies will need to develop new approaches to child<br />
welfare, which may eventually need to be mandated and funded at<br />
the national level. The new approaches will have to combine services,<br />
required parental activities, and cash or in-kind assistance,<br />
and perhaps even structured living situations, as well as provide<br />
counseling and support. They will recognize that full-time unsubsidized<br />
employment is too ambitious a goal for some parents and will have<br />
to provide ongoing assistance, in many cases on a long-term basis.<br />
To avoid being perceived as an easy way out of the welfare system's<br />
work requirements, the new approaches will also have to provide<br />
supervision, require participation in activities, and perhaps<br />
limit the flexibility of assistance through vouchers or in-kind<br />
services. They will be more intensive and almost certainly more<br />
expensive than current cash assistance, but willone hopesbe<br />
required for many fewer families. </p>
<p>
A research and experiential base sufficient to design such a system<br />
on a national basis does not currently exist. But I predict we<br />
will need such a system. We should be ready in a few years to<br />
propose a system that provides more or less uniform protections<br />
across the nation. The first steps should be careful observation<br />
of state efforts and some demonstrations. I hope that states will<br />
start now, so that in a few years we have a firm basis for serious<br />
national legislation.</p>
<p>
</p><hr /><h3>MOVING FORWARDBECAUSE THERE'S NO MOVING BACK</h3>
<p>The 1996 welfare law does indeed "end welfare as we knew<br />
it." There is no politically feasible way of going back to<br />
the old structure, with its guarantees of assistance and federal<br />
regulation of state programs. A new national commitment to the<br />
poor will have to come through approaches that are very different<br />
from the old discredited system; this cannot be achieved by incrementally<br />
fixing the law.</p>
<p>
For now, we should soften the immigrant and food stamp provisions<br />
of the law as much as possible. It is also crucial to fix the<br />
TANF part of the law. For one thing, we need a better understanding<br />
of what is happening so that information is available to local<br />
and national groups demonstrating the need for change. It would<br />
be desirable, if possible, to tighten and clarify the requirements<br />
for equitable treatment, and to provide for at least optional<br />
vouchers for needy children whose parents have been denied aid.</p>
<p>
<font size="+2">F</font>or the longer term, I believe we should be looking toward<br />
the time when the nation has gotten over its disgust with the<br />
old welfare system and is ready to consider once again its national<br />
responsibilities for children. For this new debate, which I believe<br />
is inevitable in a few years, we should focus on developing new<br />
approaches to job development and worker support, and to protecting<br />
children.</p>
<p>
I would like nothing better than to be wrong about the dangers<br />
of the new era that the new welfare law has begun. But if I am<br />
right, there is an enormous amount of work to be done, and the<br />
time to start is now.</p>
<p><br /></p><center><br /><table width="400" border="1" cellpadding="10"><br /><tr><br /><td>
<p>Vermont has instituted reforms that both parallel and run against Clinton's plan. See "<a href="fs30zeng.html">Welfare as Vermont Knows It</a>," by Jason Gray Zengerle.</p>
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<p><br /><br /><!-- dhandler for print articles --></p></div></div></div>Sat, 17 Nov 2001 01:22:01 +0000141176 at http://prospect.orgMaryJo Bane